As Canadian delegates to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Poznan, Poland struggle to prevent any progress toward a international agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, Canadian scientist David Barber announces that climate change is coming faster and more furiously than even the most pessimistic modellers could have imagined.

Barber, speaking at the International Arctic Change 2008 conference this week in Quebec City, said sea ice in the Canadian Arctic, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said could melt as early as 2100, is now in danger of melting in 2015, nearly a century ahead of schedule.